Monday, February 29, 2016

Over the weekend I ran an IELTS preparation course here in Manchester. We did some good work on 'paragraph headings' questions, and one of the exercises that we used was test 3, passage 2 in Cambridge IELTS book 5.

Here are the keywords from the 'paragraph headings' section in that test:

Note: I always recommend doing paragraph matching questions last. They are much easier if you are already familiar with the passage, having done other question sections first.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Let's look at an essay plan and an introduction for the question below.

More and more people are migrating to cities in search of a better life, but city life can be extremely difficult. Explain some of the difficulties of living in a city. How can governments make urban life better for everyone?

Solutions: social housing, reduce migration by improving small towns and the rural economy, improve public transport, fewer cars

Conclusion: repeat / summarise

Introduction:

Cities are often seen as places of opportunity, but there are also some major drawbacks of living in a large metropolis. In my opinion, governments could do much more to improve city life for the average inhabitant.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Learning a second language can boost thinking skills, improve mental agility and delay the ageing of the brain, according to scientists who believe that speaking minority languages should be positively encouraged in schools and universities. Studies have found that children and adults who learn or speak another language benefit from the extra effort it takes to handle two sets of vocabularies and rules of grammar.

“Fewer parents speak minority languages to their children because of the perceived lack of usefulness. Many people still think that a minority language makes children confused and puts them at a disadvantage at school,” said Antonella Sorace of the University of Edinburgh. “These feelings clash with much research on bilingualism, which shows instead that when there are differences between monolingual and bilingual children, these are almost invariably in favour of bilinguals,” Dr Sorace said.

“Bilingual children tend to have enhanced language abilities, a better understanding of others’ points of view, and more mental flexibility in dealing with complex situations,” she told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Here's another tricky reading question that someone asked me to explain. Is the answer yes, no or not given, and can you explain why?

Question:Phase I of MIRTP consisted of a survey of household expenditure on transport.

Passage:Phase I focused on research. The socio-economic survey of more than 400 households in the district indicated that a household in Makete spent, on average, seven hours a day on transporting themselves and their goods. Interesting facts regarding transport were found: 95% was on foot; 80% was within the locality; and 70% was related to the collection of water and firewood and travelling to grinding mills. Having determined the main transport needs, possible solutions were identified.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Someone pointed out that I haven't done a lesson about a "problem and solution" question for a long time. I shared the question below several years ago (here), but I didn't write the full essay.

More and more people are migrating to cities in search of a better life, but city life can be extremely difficult. Explain some of the difficulties of living in a city. How can governments make urban life better for everyone?

Monday, February 15, 2016

Here are two tricky questions that people have asked me about. For each question, decide whether the answer is false or not given, and try to explain why.

Question 1 (Cambridge 7, test 3)Problems in Nordic countries were excluded because they are outside the European Economic Community.

Relevant part of the passage:Their initial task was to decide which of the many forest problems of concern to Europe involved the largest number of countries and might be subject to joint action. Those confined to particular geographical areas, such as countries bordering the Mediterranean or the Nordic countries therefore had to be discarded.

Question 2 (Cambridge 10, test 3)Tourism contributes over six per cent of the Australian gross national product.

Relevant part of the passage:This industry (tourism) is the world's leading industrial contributor, producing over 6 per cent of the world's gross national product.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

In the comments below Wednesday's lesson, a few people said that they didn't see any "advanced" vocabulary* in my essay. But examiners are not looking for "advanced" vocabulary; they are looking for "less common" vocabulary.

"Less common" vocabulary means words and phrases that most students wouldn't think to use in their essays. For example, in the first line of my essay, I used the verb "to rival". You might know the noun "rival", but have you ever used it as a verb? This is not an "advanced" word, but it is certainly less commonly used by IELTS candidates, and the examiner would be impressed to see it used in this way.

Here are the "less common" phrases from my essay:

the Internet is beginning to rival newspapers

the traditional press

vital source of information

the Internet age

traditional means of communicating

rural areas

the ability or opportunity to get online

trusted as reliable sources

employ professional journalists and editors

news in real time

gadgets and mobile devices

contribute with our own updates on social media

an explosion in the use of platforms

Note:Although you probably understand the phrases above, most candidates would not use them in their essays.

*I never use the terms "advanced vocabulary" or "difficult vocabulary". Anyone can find a "big" word in the dictionary and translate it. The difficult skill is to use words together in collocations and phrases.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

If you didn't manage to watch the video lesson that I published yesterday, here's a quick summary of the key ideas.

In the video, I look at the topic "Describe a person", which is one of the six main topics in part 2 of the speaking test. Here are some possible questions in this topic area:

Describe a teacher

Describe a famous person

Describe a friend

Describe a family member

Describe a child

Describe someone who helps people

Describe someone who does something well

I then suggest that we choose an easy 'theme' e.g. a hard-working and friendly person. We can prepare lots of good vocabulary for this theme, and hopefully use it to describe any of the people in the list above.

Monday, February 08, 2016

Over the weekend I ran an IELTS preparation course here in Manchester. One of the reading exercises that we did came from Cambridge 5 (test 1, passage 2). The topic of the passage was a famous psychology experiment.

My students found the 'which paragraph contains?' exercise particularly tricky. Here's a keyword table for that exercise:

It's a bit later than I planned, but I've now published my latest video lesson. In the lesson, I give you some tips and example answers for part 1 of the speaking test. There's also some interesting advice about 'strange' topics!

Thursday, February 04, 2016

The bar chart compares the amount of time spent by people in the UK on three different types of phone call between 1995 and 2002.

It is clear that calls made via local, fixed lines were the most popular type, in terms of overall usage, throughout the period shown. The lowest figures on the chart are for mobile calls, but this category also saw the most dramatic increase in user minutes.

In 1995, people in the UK used fixed lines for a total of just over 70 billion minutes for local calls, and about half of that amount of time for national or international calls. By contrast, mobile phones were only used for around 4 billion minutes. Over the following four years, the figures for all three types of phone call increased steadily.

By 1999, the amount of time spent on local calls using landlines had reached a peak at 90 billion minutes. Subsequently, the figure for this category fell, but the rise in the other two types of phone call continued. In 2002, the number of minutes of national / international landline calls passed 60 billion, while the figure for mobiles rose to around 45 billion minutes.

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

In last week's lesson I explained that we sometimes need to 'disagree' if we want to write a balanced answer. I'll demonstrate how this works below.

Question:Although more and more people read news on the Internet, newspapers will remain the most important source of news. Do you agree or disagree?

My introduction:The Internet is beginning to rival newspapers as the best place to find information about what is happening in the world. I believe that this trend will continue, and the Internet will soon be just as important as the traditional press.

My conclusion:In conclusion, I disagree with the view that newspapers will continue to be the main source of news, because I believe that the Internet will soon be equally important.

Note:Remember that I'm disagreeing with the word "most". By arguing that the Internet will become equally important, I can write about both newspapers and the Internet as sources of news.

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

1. When does the speaker say we will reach peak world population?2. What number does he give for the current world population?3. What does he say about organic farming?4. What other solution does he suggest?5. Which three cereal crops does he say are the most important?

Monday, February 01, 2016

The environmental challenges posed by agriculture are huge, and they’ll only become more pressing as we try to meet the growing need for food worldwide. We’ll likely have two billion more mouths to feed by mid-century - more than nine billion people. But sheer population growth isn’t the only reason we’ll need more food. The spread of prosperity across the world, especially in India and China, is driving an increased demand for meat, eggs and dairy, boosting pressure to grow more corn and soybeans to feed more cattle, pigs and chickens. If these trends continue, the double whammy of population growth and richer diets will require us to roughly double the amount of crops we grow by 2050.

(Source: National Geographic)

A) Two key trends driving the demand for food worldwide.B) The impact of agriculture on the natural world.C) Growing populations and their need for food.